


The Headline

by Dojh167



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Death, Community: HPFT, Current Events, Death, Gen, Grief, Mass Murder, Orlando shooting, Orlando victims, Politicians, Real world, The Pulse, media, senseless violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7206671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dojh167/pseuds/Dojh167
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <br/>
    <i>The headline is too familiar.</i>
  </p>
  <p>In reaction to the Orlando Pulse shooting.</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	The Headline

The headline is too familiar.

I weep. The tears that ask why they must fall are not surprised. They know this scene, have played it many times before. 

Another life lost. Another child gone. Another family broken. The world is broken. It laments, elegizes, and does nothing.

I go to every vigil, speak the names of every life lost. The name in my heart is Cedric. My grief for my child, forever seventeen, is echoed in my thoughts for those I will never know.

I forget why I am there. I lose track of the numbers of the dead. My grief plays on repeat, and the pain and numbness threaten to drown each other out. 

I am told to keep fighting. I am told to face the hate with love. I am told to advocate for change. I am told to accept it all. I am told to move on. 

Sometimes all there is to do to keep fighting is to choose to live another day. To wake to another headline.

Even on the days when there are no fresh names on the list of the lost, my soul grieves. The dead press in on my heart, and I do not understand those around me whose hearts seem unbound. I envy them the freedom of their optimism. But I also pity them, who can be so surprised by such familiar news. I know what dance they will choose before the music begins. Their sorrow will drown out all else as they beat at their chests and howl at the heavens, and when a happier song begins all will be forgotten.

And they tell me that my grief is unnatural. That I am not truly living, in my adherence to unbecoming mourning. That everything is not about my son. That I am achieving nothing with my cycle of endless sorrow. Perhaps they are right. But I cannot see what will be achieved with their cycle of endless amnesia. 

Today the headlines grieve. Tomorrow they will politicize. They will tell us there is no trend, that the violence of the war is behind us. They will tell us which policies are or are not to blame. And in a week they will have moved on entirely. 

When it was my son’s name in the headline, the world raged and debated over the truth of that night, but everyone acknowledged the tragedy. Today there are more dead children, and as I see those in power rush to transform a tragedy into a platform, I wonder if they remember how to spell tragedy. 

Tevin.

Rodolfo. 

Akyra.

Gilberto.

Eddie.

Deonka.

Yilmary.

I close my tired eyes and wish beyond hope to never recognize that headline again.


End file.
